The Shadow Soldiers
by eric8teen
Summary: After the war against the Empire was over the country revolted and started extarminating darcsens, the only thing these people didn't expect was that some of them would rise against them, with extreme methods...
1. Prologue

The Shadow Soldiers

Prologue

In a raining afternoon, on a rebel gallian camp, a rebel officer goes from one side to the other nonstop, with a seriously worried expression on his face.

"Sir?" Said one of the soldiers as he enters his tent.

"Did you found them? Do you know what happened?" The officer says as he grabs the soldier by the shoulders and shakes him.

"Sir…" The soldier did not dare to say the words. "You better see for yourself".

As the soldier led his officer to the north part of the camp he wondered what did he meant by that. As they got close to the north, they could see from a distance, a horrifying picture that would haunt him and all of the soldiers that were there forever.

What they saw were ten of their own soldiers, a scouting party they sent into the forest nearby, they were coming back to the camp in a line, all of them with their hands cuffed and a chain that connected them all. They were without their helmets and shirts, and in each one of their chest it was written in their own flesh the word "guilty" with the blood dripping from the recent deep wounds, nine of them were blindfolded with darcsen scarves, and blood could be seen stained in the scarves and dripping from their eyes, the one that was leading them had a scarf tied around his mouth, and there was blood coming from it as well, they also noticed that the other nine that were blindfolded had their rifles on their mouths, like dogs bringing back a stick that his owner had thrown for him to get back.

The rebel officer did not believe his own eyes, what kind of madman would do such atrocities.

"They call him boss." One of the soldiers said.

"What?" The officer asked.

As they were taking the cuffs off, they noticed that all of them had their arms broken, as they released them from the cuffs but their arms just waved a little before it completely stopped, after further examinations from their medic they also discovered that they had their ribs broken, several of them.

"Did this 'boss' said something?" The officer asked.

The soldier that was now tired mumbled something, the officer got close as the soldier whispered in his ear.

"_I'm coming to get you…"_ The soldier whispered.

At that moment the officer's soul almost lifted from his body.

"Everyone! Keep an eye on anything strange that happens, if you find someone that isn't a revolutionary, kill it!" He said, in the bravest voice that he could still get off his throat.

As he said that the some of the soldiers from his opposite side started to fire and killed many of the other soldiers that were unprepared, including the one's that just came back.

"Soldiers! Kill them all!" The officer shouted, but there were no response.

"What are you waiting for-?!" He turned around and saw that all of the soldiers were already dead, the soldier that was following him had a scared expression on his face.

"Run… sir…" The soldier said as he dropped that.

As the officer looks again he was there was a soldier behind him, wearing a rebel mask, with a knife that was stained by blood. As he looked at the soldier's eyes he recognized the color skin that was under the mask.

"_Darcsen?!"_ He thought.

He started to run, unfortunately he found no aid on his way through the camp, the only thing he found were more darcsens wearing rebel uniforms, with rebel soldiers dead at their feet, and they also were in a strange formation, as if they closed him like walls in a corridor, at the end of the corridor he found a darcsen man, with medium hair wearing a long darcsen scarf around the neck, he had a blind eye with a long scar that goes from the top of his forehead, over his blind eye and down his right cheek.

As he tries to turn around he sees now a "wall" of darcsens blocking his way back, he can't run away now, he was cornered.

He looks back as he sees that the darcsen man was now right in front of him holding his knife up and with a malignant smile on his face as he tilts his head to the side a little he says:

"Found you!"

…

Many have their stories told by lives that were taking by them, lives that were saved by them and heroic moments, but this darcsens don't wanted to be heroes, they didn't wanted to be remembered as heroes, they are not patriots nor war heroes, what they do they do for a single objective, kill all rebels.

They are the Shadow Soldiers, and this is their story.


	2. Chapter 1: Nemesis

The Shadow Soldiers

Chapter 1: Nemesis

The cold mist penetrates the rebel camp like an ambitious army invading a golden city, it hunts down the fighting spirits of man as they shout curses in the air because of the pain that the cold gives their bones and flesh. But they are not only angry because of the weather, the weather is going to be the last of their problems if the stories they heard were true.

Rumors have been heard that around the forests of the rebel camps, in the middle of the night, ghosts of darcsens that died from rebel attacks appear and walk around the forests, if they find rebel troops, they will torture them until they cannot feel any more pain, but are still alive enough to remember the suffer they passed. Such tales were told in the campfires on the rebel bases by veterans to scare the newcomers.

The stories are considered just fairy tales, but their ghosts, oh, their ghosts are very real. In less than a month they have planted fear enough in the hearts of rebel soldiers to make sure they'll never want to grab a rifle again, not even a kitchen knife. Their methods to do it so were brutal and unforgivable, they usually cut their members, blind them with hit iron and make deprive them from food for days just for the pleasure of making them eat garbage and rotten vegetables and meat, sometimes, the rebels that couldn't wait anymore started to eat their won dead, it was truly a sight to be terrified by.

In a big tent in the middle of the rebel camp there was a man that was wearing a big red jacket with a collar that covered his neck and goes all the way up to the top of his ears. Wearing a scarf covering his mouth and nose and wearing a small hat with a black feather on the side, this man is known only as Rat, both by his own soldiers as by his employers. It is said that his face was never seen by no one before, the only thing his fallen enemies see before dying are his white clear eyes, with his small dark pupils. Many say it is like seeing a big old wolf thirsty for human fresh blood, certainly, a horrible last sight.

The man is a captain of a cruel and well known overseas mercenary company. The Blood Children is what they call themselves. He had received a contract proposal from the rebel commander Gilbert Gassenarl. They would be paid a generous quantity for every month of service, get free supplies from the rebel forces, soldiers, artillery and all the captured darcsens that they could get. Rat knew this was a tough decision to make, over the years that he and his company passed being contracted by both the Empire and the Federation he knew how much was the cost of a revolution, in all of those that he saw none of them were successful. When he knew the state that the Gallian military was after the war with the Empire and how much of the population supported Gilbert Gassenarl in their common hatred of darcsens he accepted the contract. He also thought about the advantages that the rebel leader had made him, it was a long time since the men last taste the pleasure of a woman's body, even if it was a darcsen, it would so the trick, he thought. And that was enough to make his man morale rise high up in the skies, they would have swum across the ocean if transport was not available.

The Rat turns his attention back to some maps of the region that were on his table, trying to find the location of were these "ghosts" could be hiding, but until now he had only achieved failure, no matter where he examined the areas around the attacks he could never find a single trace that a man had even walked in those woods, it started to look like their reputation of being "ghosts" are making them to be real ones.

Someone entered the Rat's tent. It was a rebel with a regular red uniform, holding his helmet under his left arm and with his rifle on his back. He was only a novice, but the injuries on his face made him look like an old veteran that had been fighting his whole life. The soldier's wounds seemed recent, they were even fully healed. The soldier started to shake in fear in the presence of the mercenary captain.

One of the first things that the Rat noticed about the rebel soldiers when he first set foot on Gallia was that they seemed weak and undisciplined. All of the soldiers in the Blood Children company had in their mind that to be a real soldier you had to pretend that pain didn't existed, that contest an order of the captain means signing a declaration of their own death, even to protest against the way that the captain treats the soldiers can be considered treason, and the punishment for such things is severe and nightmarish.

"S-sir, this was found in the body of the captain from the camp of the north."

The soldier was almost peeing in his pants. The Rat turns to him, slowly, with an unreadable body language, there was no to understand what was going on his mind. When he gets close enough to the rebel soldier to get a folded paper that was on his hand he suddenly steps hard on the ground and threat to run in the direction of the soldier. The soldier reacts like a cat that is going to be charged by a big infuriated Rottweiler. He jumped back and tripped on his own feet, falling on the ground. Hel looks up and he sees the Rat letting out an evil and disturbing laugh, the soldier's sweat was cold.

"Get out of here you maggot!"

The Rat shouted to the soldier in a deep, dark and malevolent voice. The soldier tries to get up, tripping again and again until he finally comes out of the Rat's tent. The soldiers that were under the Rat's command were being led through a special training of his own, in other eyes it's called torture, you could see many soldiers with injuries caused by their so called "training", trying to teach them some respect and resistance, it was what he was thinking.

He opened the folded paper to investigate what it was. The paper had a strange symbol in the middle of it, perfectly symmetrical in all the ways possible. It was drawn with blood, possibly by the blood of the tortured rebels. The symbol seemed to have ancient darcsen runes in it. It was made to represent something, a warning to be more exact.

The Rat was not intimidated by such things. He had seen the damages that these so called "ghosts" had done on the rebels. It only served to make him more excited, and how could he not be, he wanted to finally fight against the "ghosts" that resembled the same kind of brutality and created the same fear that their own company had. To him, he was not going to rest until he had found this ghosts itself.

"Hey captain, anything knew about our ghosts?"

A big man with a hunchback entered the tent, his breath stinks of beer and he smelled like he didn't meet a good shower in years. He used an eye patch on his right eye, which also had a huge scar going from the top of his forehead to the bottom of his cheek and passed through his eye. He had a shiny bald head. It looked more like a bowling ball.

The Rat turned around to see the man.

"Lieutenant. This is what I've got it so far."

The rat handled the paper with the blood symbol to him.

The lieutenant in question was called Armar. Back at his hometown he was known as a brutal and horrible sheriff, if any law breaker was taken by him they could already ask forgiveness to the heavens, because they would not have any from him. He was not one of the most beloved characters of his hometown. He was actually the most hated. To him it mattered not if it was civilian or a law breaker, if it was on his way, he was going to treat it the same way. In the end things didn't go very well for him. When the people heard that the sheriff had abused of the butcher's young daughter they got infuriated. They came together to get the sheriff's head and they wouldn't stop until they got what they wanted. Armar's coworkers weren't even moving a finger to help him, they hated him as much as the civilian. In fact some actually took weapons and followed the angry mob in their quest for vengeance. The small police station which Armar used to work was now in ashes, burned to the ground. The angry mob fought that the bad dictating sheriff had perish it with it, but they were wrong. When the mob finally left the place a burned piece of wood started to move. Under the piece of wood was Armar, cursing in his mind the revolted mob that tried to kill him. He traveled through the country using dirt roads, trying to keep himself incognito when he stumbled upon the Blood Children. He experimented some of the "training" that the mercenary company gives their novice when he insulted the company, proving of his own medicine. One of the mercenary soldiers was going to finish him off, but the captain stopped him. He saw how much evil lies in that man's soul, the things that he had done could be seeing through the man's eyes. He was boiling with anger. In the end the Rat recruited him and as the years passed by he somehow saw some potential in that brute man. He was promoted Lieutenant last year.

"Hun? So this darcsen dogs think they can scare us with such thing?"

Armar gave no such sine of fear when he saw the blood symbol.

"Not us, but there is no doubt that these rebel soldiers would flee at the first opportunity that they would find."

Rat was right about that. The fear in the rebel soldier's hearts was too much to be described with words. If it wasn't for Gilbert Gassenarl hiring the Blood Children this men would have dispersed for a long time now. Because of the Rat's influence of fear of the soldiers they do not even attempt to flee. It seemed that both of the sides, being the "ghosts" or the mercenaries, are equally frightening and there was nowhere to run from this nightmare. The soldiers in the camp are most likely waiting for their deaths, from one of the two sides, or, if they are lucky, by a natural disaster.

"Prepare the soldiers for a scout mission. There is another place I have marked on the map that might be their base"

"Ha! Alright, I'll do that, if only they don't run away in the middle of the mission."

Armar had a certain special way to treat deserters. He breaks their bones and let them without the appropriated medical treatment. When the bones are fully healed they are all bent or twisted, some of the soldiers can't even walk straight after and have to leave the company.

Armar and Rat prepared a small troop of rebel soldiers to scout the area and see if they find any evidence of these Darcsen "ghosts".

When Rat came to the country with the company he assumed that to this mission they wouldn't need the help of his own soldiers, after all, he would only need to find this so called ghosts and finish them off, a simple task, he thought… Too bad he was wrong.

In the deepest parts of the woods they marched with a party of twelve soldiers plus the Rat himself and Armar. The woods in the area had grown so much that the little sun light that the region have to offer almost never touches the ground. The misty is so thick that the soldiers can't see half a meter of what is in front of them and the absolute absence of sound in the forest plays with the soldiers mind, they would have ran already if it wasn't for the presence of Rat and Armar.

They finally came to the spot. The place had no one around, but on the floor, formed in a circle, there were huge puddles of blood. By the way they looked it seemed that it was there from weeks ago.

"I don't see any darcsen."

Said Armar to Rat.

Rat looked around trying to notice if anything moved around them. He was worried, for it seemed a perfect place to make an ambush. Armar and Rat heard one of the rebel soldiers screaming, they turned around to the soldier that had fallen on the ground on his rear and had a stain of blood on his cheek. By the look of it, it seemed fresh. No matter how much the other soldiers or Rat and Armar tried to get the soldier's attention he didn't turned his sight from the high part of the trees. Armar and Rat slowly turned around, looking to the tall parts of the trees. What they saw didn't shock them, but the soldiers were startled, some of them started to vomit.

On the tall parts of the trees, on the branches, there they were, carcasses of rebel soldiers rotting, letting out the last drops of blood they still had on their tortured bodies. On the head of every single one it was the same mark that was on the body of the dead commander from the destroyed camp. This time the fear against the "ghosts" strikes the heart of man more than the fear of the Rat. One of the rebel soldiers ran away.

"Oh? The little coward thinks he can run away."

Armar had a sinister and dark smile on his face.

"They never learn, do they?"

Rat pulls his pistol from his waist and shoots him in the head. The soldier falls immediately.

Armar hear one of the other soldiers giving the first step to run away in the opposite direction. He pulls his pistol and shoots him right at his foot before he can even give the second step. He noticed other soldier that was scared, with his eyes opened wide. It was clear he was thinking about running away.

"Don't even think about."

Armar aimed his pistol at the soldier. He stood still.

Rat slowly walked in the direction of the fallen deserter soldier. He kneeled next to his body.

"It would be so much better if you had just stood still, but cowards will always be cowards I guess."

Rat removed the novice soldier's red helmet and took with him back to the camp. Rat has a sick trophy collection of the deserters he had killed in his entire life. He would take anything that was available. If it didn't have a precious personal belonging he would take a part of the body, a piece of hair or a golden tooth.

They return to the camp and Rat noticed a certain commotion.

"Soldier! What the hell is going on here?"

Rat asked one of the soldiers that were running in the direction of the commotion. The soldier turned to the mercenary captain and then his face expression had changed from a relief one to a desperate one. Most of the soldiers always acted like that when they are called or asked anything from Rat.

"S- sir! Some survivors from another camp arrived when you were out!"

Rat had hoped to ask these survivors about the "ghosts". Were they in big numbers? Did they have artillery units? What were their strategies? He would have the chance to discover everything once he had reached those soldiers.

Rat and Armar came to the center of the camp, were the commotion was stronger. When they passed through the soldiers in the way they found rebel soldiers, with deep wounds in their whole bodies. Their heads where covered with a white cloth, with blood stains in the position of the eyes. Only one of them had his mouth covered, with a white cloth, also, with a blood stain over it. The soldiers started to take off the cloth from their eyes and the mouth of the one that was ahead, leading them.

Rat approached the one that was leading. He looked at him for a long time. The soldier looked depressed and exhausted. He was looking at the ground the whole time while he had his hands covering his head. He finally started to move his head, slowly lifting it up in the direction of Rat. Looking at his eyes for almost thirty seconds, letting out a bent smile. Rat noticed something was wrong.

"What the hell?" One of the soldiers said as he removed the white cloth from the head of one of the other soldiers. He's hair was dark blue. Darcsen!

Before they could do anything all of the fake soldiers let drop the rope that never was holding them and pulled pistols from the back of their pants. Rat tried to shoot the one that looked at him, but he grabbed one of the rebel soldiers that was by his side and used as a human shield.

The rebels tried to take the fake soldiers down but they didn't have the time. While the fake soldiers attacked from the inside, heavy armed darcsens attacked the camp from all the sides from the outside.

In the end there were only two rebel soldiers that were still alive in that camp, Rat and Armar. They refused to let their weapons down, even thought it was impossible to win or to run away.

"Let your weapons down! Now!"

A woman shouted at Armar. She had a scar that goes from the left corner of her mouth and continues through her cheeks.

"Oh? A furious woman hun? That's the way I like it! I'll sure make you happy once i-"

Without having a chance to finish he is hit on the head with a flying spinning kick from the woman. He immediately passes out. Rat recognizes there is no way out and tossed his pistol at the ground. All darcsens are aiming at him, the smallest movement and he was going to be taken down.

On the other side of the camp he sees only one darcsen moving, the same darcsen that he had been staring before. He ripped open the shirt of one of the dead rebels and drew their symbol. He lifted up and walked to Rat's direction while he played with his knife.

"Some man where meant to be born free, some were made to govern… and others, where meant to torture. But one of them has to suffer, who do you think it should be?"

Rat saw the man's eyes. He seemed serious.

"The weak were made to be controlled by the weak, there is no other way."

Rat answered him, cold as a stone on the highest mountain.

"So, Rat is the name right?"

Rat seemed surprised. How did he know his name? He thought.

"How? I have some informants and spies."

The man answered with such simplicity and calm.

"What is that you want? You didn't let us alive just for small talk now, did you?"

Rat started to get nervous.

"One: A warning. Get off of Gallia as fast as you can if you want to save yourself and your man. Two: Go back to your employer and tell him it will take more than a company of mercenaries to stop us. Three: Remember, we will not be merciful when the time comes. Those on the side of the rebels will be our enemies as well."

The man said.

"Is that all?"

Rat asked, seemed disrespectful to this man.

"Yes. You may go now, and take your lieutenant with you."

Rat lifted Armar from the ground and carried him on his shoulder. Walking all the way back to the central base of the rebel forces. Before he continued any further he stopped.

"How are you, and why do you fight?"

Rat asked the man.

The man stopped, turned to him and said, with his face tilted to the side and with a wicked smile on his face that would make any man freeze in terror.

"My name is Crow, and this is my extermination troop. We call ourselves The Shadow Soldiers, and our mission is very simple: Kill rebels."

With that Crow turned around to his troops and they continued destroying the camp. Burning the camp and grabbing the supplies. Rat continued walking back to the central rebel base, carrying Armar on his shoulder. While he walked he had only one thing stuck on his mind, The Shadow Soldiers. He didn't knew their weak or strong spots, how may there were and how much influence they had over the people, but one thing he knew for sure, that he needed to fight again with this so called extermination troop, this group of soldiers that made the perfect nemesis for the Blood Children company. He would once again meet Crow and his soldiers in the battlefield, with his own soldiers against theirs, and try to prove who the best unit is.

Rat smiles. It starts to rain…


End file.
